The First Push Towards Despair
by RFTA
Summary: *SPOILERS FOR THE DANGAN RONPA SERIES.* No one is above despair. A single second is all it takes to fall.


Disclaimer: I own nothing.

 _Chiaki._

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to..." No one that had spent any length of time with Chiaki Nanami would believe that the calm, quiet, serious, kind and wise girl could be reduced to such an emotional state. Chiaki herself wouldn't have believed it, yet here she was, standing in a blood-stained corridor, still holding her meat cleaver over the student she had just killed.

The state of her victim, and her surroundings held more an abstract fascination for Chiaki than horror; she couldn't help comparing them to the many horror games she had played. The life or death survival game she had been forced into playing though; where she had done the unthinkable, the unforgivable, and taken a life with her own hands would torment for the rest of her life.

When the student council had been thrown into this nightmare; Chiaki had first tried to reason with everyone, telling them that they could all escape, if they just worked together. At first it had worked, Chiaki, whom had spent most of the past year as the glue that had kept her own beloved class together, had vast experience by now in keeping people together.

Then, Junko Enoshima, the one responsible for the nightmare Chiaki was now living in, had triggered the traps in the building. While searching for a means to escape, students had their lips torn open, glass thrown into their eyes, among other things. The end result was that the student council had taken up arms, and were now trying their hardest to kill one another.

Chiaki had quickly realised that her words, no matter how heartfelt, weren't enough to overcome the mindless fear that had been instilled in the other members of the student council; she'd been attacked three times already.

Chiaki's first thought was to find somewhere to hide; she knew she could do nothing to stop the killing. Chiaki was, in spite of everything, only human herself, and neither wanted to kill or be killed. If she could only hide and until the end of the slaughter, she vowed that she would somehow see Enoshima brought to justice, and reveal the truth behind this event to all of Hope's Peak Academy.

It was while she was trying to find somewhere to hide that everything changed.

Running down an empty corridor, a monitor on the wall had flickered to life, showing Enoshima, her face hidden by what looked to be a toy bear. One side of the bears face was white and innocent, while the other half was black, and sinister.

"Upupu. Trying to run, are we?" Enoshima's tone was happy, but with her next words suddenly changed to one of despair. "And I worked so hard on my little display of affection for you bastards. You gamers are always trying to cheat." Enoshima's tone changed again, becoming emotionless. "Well, if you really want to run and hide, I won't stop you. Just so you know, though, the members of the student council aren't the only participants in this game." Back to happy. "That's right! We've got a super-duper special guest participant – Izuru Kamukura; the Ultimate Hope himself! Or, as you otherwise know him, the darling Hajime Hinata!" Enoshima's voice changed again, low and confiding. "If you want Hajime to get out of here alive, your only option is to kill your fellow student council members. If you don't, the consequences will be truly despair inducing."

The sound of Enoshima's laughter echoed around the corridor, as her obscured face disappeared from the monitor, replaced with an image of Izuru sitting in a dark room, looking oddly at ease.

Chiaki stood frozen in the corridor, contemplating her next move.

 _This is a choice right out of a Telltales game._

* * *

 _Izuru._

Tedium. Boredom. That was pretty much all Izuru had known from when he had first awoken. The only exception to the never ending monotony was those faint, blurry memories and emotions of Hajime Hinata. They were as useless as Hajime had been himself in the acquisition and furthering of talent, and therefore were fit only to be discarded; but Izuru couldn't deny that those emotions intrigued him.

Izuru's teachers believed that Hajime had been completely suppressed, after Hajime's personality had been deemed as entirely unsuitable for the Ultimate Hope, and Izuru had decided not to enlighten them. Even though Hajime still existed, albeit in a faint, intangible form, even that was gradually fading away. Soon Hajime would completely disappear. With that in mind, Izuru savoured those feelings, their unpredictability and lack of logic providing the only reprieve from his banal existence, which all too soon, would be lost to him.

One face stood out with slightly more clarity in Izuru's mind; the last face Hajime had thought of before he had been transformed into Izuru: Chiaki.

Izuru wanted to meet Chiaki for himself, to see what it was about her that had inspired such emotions, so totally incomprehensible to Izuru, in Hajime. After a fashion, Izuru managed to recall that Hajime and Chiaki had frequently met during school breaks to play games together.

Izuru was kept confined, under constant surveillance, but with his talents, it was ridiculously easy to escape the room where he was kept, and escape undetected to the location where Hajime and Chiaki had met so many times.

It had been more than six months since Hajime and Chiaki had met, but as if no time had passed, Chiaki was sat on the bench, playing on her hand-held console. Instinctively, Izuru realised that Chiaki had kept coming here, day after day, waiting to see Hajime again. That idea was baffling to Izuru; why would someone with talent, like Chiaki, waste so much time waiting for one of the parasites that lived off of the talented, like Hajime? Izuru appraised Chiaki for a moment from a distance. Certainly nothing in her looks suggested that she was anything special. If not for her talent, she would be completely unremarkable.

Wordlessly, Izuru sat next to Chiaki on the bench, pulling his own hand-held console out from his trouser pocket. As with Chiaki, Izuru recalled that Hajime associated the machine with memories that held strong emotions, and so Izuru had kept it.

Chiaki looked at Izuru curiously. The usual animation and excitement Chiaki showed at the prospect of a game with someone was no where to be seen.

"Let's play." Izuru said, abruptly.

"...yes" Chiaki replied.

Chiaki was undoubtedly a superb gamer; but against a man such as Izuru, beloved by talent, she had no chance. Izuru decimated her in twenty seconds. With a sigh, Izuru stood up.

"That was boring. Your talent is nothing compared to mine. You hold no value or interest to me." It took Izuru a second to realise that what he was feeling was disappointment. Izuru had hoped that his initial analysis was wrong, that Chiaki was special in some way, that she could inspire some of the emotion in him that she had in Hajime, but she was just as boring as everyone else. Chiaki was staring up at Izuru, her expression blank. She seemed completely unaffected by Izuru's words.

Izuru started to walk away with the intention of returning to his solitary room, when he felt a twinge of guilt. Izuru immediately realised that the emotion was coming from the buried, but not quite dead, Hajime, rather than himself. Izuru could have dismissed the feeling from his mind, but he was more inclined to indulge those alien emotions, and so Izuru stepped back over to Chiaki, and carefully, knowing he could snap Chiaki in half without even straining, placed his hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Chiaki," Izuru said.

Chiaki looked up at him; she had already started a new game.

"...ah!" Chiaki gasped. "Could it be...Hajime?" Izuru didn't reply, he was already walking away from her.

* * *

 _Chiaki._

 _If I find Hajime, we can find a way to escape together...I think._

Chiaki turned and started heading back the way she came. On the floor near the doorway she found a meat cleaver. After a moment of hesitation, Chiaki stooped, and picked it up.

 _It's just a way to scare people off. If I'm unarmed, I'll be an easy target._

Meticulously, Chiaki checked every room she passed, in every shadowed corner, under and behind each piece of furniture. All she found was bodies; it seemed that most of the student council had been killed by now. While she was investigating in one of the rooms, she suddenly sensed a presence behind her. She whirled around, raising the cleaver just in time to block a blow aimed at her head with a thick pipe.

Stumbling backwards Chiaki raised her head to look at her attacker. Eyes glinting red, a face broken and distorted by despair into complete insanity.

"You don't have to do this. We can work together, and find a way out." Chiaki didn't think she could reason with the deranged being in front of her, but she had to try.

"Liar! You just want me to lower my guard so you can kill me! Kehehe, I won't fall for that! I'll get out of here, but it'll be over your dead body." With a scream, the student attacked again. Chiaki managed to evade the blow, before she took off running. The student immediately moved to block the door with their body; smart enough even in their madness to handle Chiaki's only means of escape.

There was only one hope; Chiaki ran full tilt at the student, knocking them away. Chiaki shot through the door, but all too soon, she could hear the running footsteps of the student. From the increasing volume, Chiaki could tell without turning her head that the student was faster than her – it was only a matter of seconds before the student caught up.

Blindly, Chiaki spun in a circle, holding the cleaver out. She had only intended the action to intimidate her would-be-murderer, hopefully slowing them down enough for Chiaki to escape, but as Chiaki spun, she heard a sickening crack as her cleaver connected with the student, followed by a thump, as the body of the student fell to the floor.

* * *

 _Izuru._

Izuru was bored. Interested in what Enoshima had told him, the first time they had met, Izuru had agreed to go along with Enoshima when she had sought him out again; he had taken up position in a small room located in the building where Enoshima's killing game was to take place. A small bank of monitors had also been installed in the room, each them showing a live feed from different areas of the building. Here Izuru would watch the killing game, and see first-hand how despair provided an unpredictability that hope could not.

All Izuru was shown though, was a massacre. People turning on each other with murderous intent, be it strangers or friends, to save themselves was a common human reaction. There was nothing to be learnt here. Izuru contemplated killing the student council himself, just to bring about the end of this farce more quickly, then decided against it. The idea of hunting down and killing the students, whom, even with their talents, were nothing compared to him, was boring.

What Izuru hadn't initially realised, was that Chiaki would be one of the participants; he either hadn't known, or had forgotten that she was the student council representative for her class.

Chiaki's presence meant nothing to Izuru, but when the killing started, Hajime was filled with horror over the danger Chiaki was in. Those emotions that came from Hajime had faded even more since Izuru and Chiaki had met, but Izuru hadn't lost his fascination with them, as he was still unable to predict them with any accuracy.

If Izuru allowed Chiaki to die, he was sure that those emotions would intensify dramatically; likely the first and only time Izuru would ever feel such strong, pure emotion. From another angle though, Hajime would be relieved, and even happy if Chiaki escaped. Izuru had only felt negative emotion from Hajime since his birth, and Izuru couldn't properly recall the times when Hajime had been happy.

A strong, somewhat familiar, emotion, or a new emotion, one which Izuru couldn't predict the strength of?

 _To learn, one must go through new experiences._

And so, Izuru left his little room, and joined the killing game. Though Chiaki wasn't aware of it, each time she'd escaped from her first three attackers, Izuru had stepped in, and prevented them from chasing her. Izuru hadn't killed any of them; he was determined that he would do nothing to help Enoshima's plans. Instead, Izuru had simply knocked them out, and left them lying on the floor.

When Izuru had knocked out the third attacker, another student had decided to try sneaking up on Izuru. They had failed, of course, and Izuru had simply rendered them unconscious like the other three. Hajime, though, had been scared, and Izuru had spent a moment just standing motionless, absorbing that faint trace of fear.

By the time Izuru was ready to start shadowing Chiaki again – Izuru had considered it, and decided he didn't want Chiaki to know he was helping her; Izuru personally found Chiaki boring, and had no interest in the inevitable questions and conversation that would follow if Chiaki knew – Chiaki had disappeared; her fear giving her a speed that she normally would not have been able to accomplish.

With no other recourse, Izuru had been forced to search in each room and corridor for her. On his searches, Izuru came across the first two people he had knocked out; someone had taken advantage of their defenceless state, and killed them. Izuru merely noted that fact; it was of no importance to him, or, under the current circumstances, to Hajime.

Finally, Izuru saw Chiaki as she burst out of a room, yet another student in close pursuit. Izuru started to move towards the pair.

And then Chiaki swung the meat cleaver she was holding.

Izuru watched as the body fell to the ground. Hajime cried out with sympathy for Chiaki, and anguish the situation which Chiaki had been forced into. For the first time though, Izuru ignored those feelings. For the first time, Izuru was experiencing two new emotions of his own: disbelief and anger. Izuru had intended to get Chiaki out of the killing game unharmed, and he had failed in his goal. Izuru, Ultimate Hope, the man beloved by talent, had failed.

Slowly, Izuru walked over to Chiaki. Her head was still bowed as she slowly, but silently sobbed. When Izuru was close enough, he reached out, and gripped Chiaki's chin, careful not to grip too firmly, and raised her head so she was looking into his merciless, blood-red eyes.

"Hajime," Chiaki whispered, her voice ragged. Izuru did not dispute the name, even though Hajime would very soon completely cease to exist. Izuru stared at Chiaki, at her tear filled eyes, the exhaustion, and despair emanating from her body.

Chiaki was strong; in time, she would recover. Even so, what she had done today, would leave deep scars that would never heal.

The second time Enoshima and Izuru had met, Enoshima had told Izuru her plans. This game was just the first part of her plan to immerse the world in despair, leading to an apocalypse like nothing the world had ever seen or imagined before. To achieve this goal, Enoshima wanted to turn Hope's Peak Academy to despair, to have the Ultimates use their talents, employing twisted and brutal methods to further her goals. Such an ambition could be dismissed as absurd. Izuru, however, fully understood Enoshima's analytical talent. Izuru also knew that Hope's Peak, had, in their willingness to sacrifice in the pursuit of studying and nurturing talent, had laid the foundations for the wildfire of despair that Enoshima sought to bring, even before Enoshima had set foot in Hope's Peak.

Izuru knew that there was a high probability that Enoshima would succeed; and with his own talents, could predict how the future would go. The 77th class would fall into despair, Izuru was certain of that from the information he had on them. Even though Chiaki would do everything she could to prevent it, she would fail, as she had failed to stop the killing today. Eventually, Chiaki herself, would also fall to despair; she would almost certainly be the last of her class to fall, earning her nothing but more pain, but Chiaki would fall. This murder, though accidental, had already given Chiaki the first push towards despair.

A Chiaki filled with despair would use her intellect and knowledge of video games to come up with elaborate ways to torture and kill people; a strong asset indeed, to furthering despair. The girl that stood in front of Izuru now, fractured and damaged by the act of killing someone would become nothing but a forgotten memory, replaced by one that would revel in the act causing pain and suffering, leaving behind a long trail of victims in her wake.

Izuru had failed to save Chiaki, but he still had a chance to save Chiaki from that future he could clearly see lying ahead.

* * *

 _Chiaki._

Even exhausted, and filled with despair as she was, Chiaki was relieved to see Hajime was still alive and well. She didn't understand why Hajime's appearance or personality had changed, but...

Hajime wrapped his free arm around her waist, and drew her closer to him, keeping his grip on her chin. Somewhere, deep down, Chiaki felt a faint sense of danger, and ignored it. Hajime slowly stroked her back, his head bent to whisper meaningless, but comforting words in her ear.

 _It's alright. Cuz, no matter what's happened, this is still Hajime. And I believe in him._

Chiaki never even felt the knife as it pierced her back.

* * *

 _Izuru._

Izuru held Chiaki up as she started to slump. As expected by one so beloved by talent as him, he had killed Chiaki instantaneously, and painlessly; she wouldn't have even realised what had happened. Izuru slowly kissed Chiaki's forehead, she was already starting to go cold.

Izuru lowered Chiaki to the ground. Hajime's torment and despair was cascading, flooding and drowning him. Izuru stood as still as a statue, in absolute rapture. In this wondrous state, Izuru found himself gaining a new understanding of Enoshima's words that for people like them, only in despair, could unpredictability be found, only in despair, could a release from the torment of a boring existence be embraced.

Izuru had no idea how long he had stood there, simply allowing the unknown sensations flow through him, but once they had started to ebb, Izuru turned his attention inwards, to Hajime. What Izuru had just felt, was the apex of what Hajime had had to offer Izuru. Anything that came after this would be nothing but the merest shadow of what Izuru had just experienced. Hajime therefore, had outlived his usefulness to Izuru. In less than a second, Izuru blocked Hajime from his consciousness; Hajime was finally eternally suppressed. That done, Izuru looked down.

Chiaki Nanami had died in despair. And by murdering her, Izuru had saved Chiaki from the monster twisted, and loving despair he believed Chiaki was destined to become. Izuru idly wondered if the words he had whispered to Chiaki just before he'd killed her had brought Chiaki any comfort, any lessening of despair in those final moments.

Either way, it meant nothing to Izuru.

Izuru's thoughts were now all on Enoshima; she had indeed been telling Izuru the truth about the promise of despair. Enoshima, had also, perhaps unintentionally, made Izuru fail for the first time, first by not getting Chiaki out, and then by killing a participant of the game, despite Izuru's resolve not to do anything to help Enoshima. Izuru intended to repay Enoshima with a despair beyond her wildest imagination.

* * *

 _Jin Kirigiri._

Kirigiri sighed as he laid down the report. The information in that report; what had been done to the student council would haunt Kirigiri's nightmares for some time to come.

One body had stuck out from the carnage. Where most of the student council had suffered terrible, disfiguring wounds, Chiaki Nanami had been found lying on a covered table. Aside from a small tear in the back of her shirt, bearing the slightest trace of blood, a yellow carnation and a daisy laid atop of her, Chiaki could have been sleeping.

It was that which had lead Kirigiri to suspect Izuru.

 _A special brand of hope, one which we at Hope's Peak have spent years working towards, and he slaughters my students._

For the first time, Kirigiri wondered if he'd been wrong all these years. The thought lead to a bitter laugh. If Kirigiri had been wrong, then all those sacrifices over the years, foremost the abandonment of Kyouko, would be meaningless.

Kirigiri couldn't accept that; for the sake of his very sanity if nothing else. Arrangements were already being made to cover up the murders of the student council, Izuru had already been hidden away in a new location.

 _The crimes committed by Izuru were terrible, but that doesn't change what he is, or how he was created._

The Steering Committee would stop at nothing to protect Izuru; Kirigiri really had no say at all. Reminiscing over events and decisions that had lead to this tragedy was self-indulgent, and pointless. Life at Hope's Peak Academy would continue on as normal, and Kirigiri would do everything he could to ensure that life continued to run smoothly.

A sharp knock came from Kirigiri's closed door. Quickly, Kirigiri put the report lying on his desk into a drawer. Only the Steering Committee and himself knew about the incident; and Kirigiri intended to keep it that way. The student who had first discovered the scene, Junko Enoshima, had, under intense interrogation, been found to be suffering from amnesia, most likely due to trauma.

Chisa Yukizome entered. Her usually bright and cheerful demeanour was replaced with one of alarm. Before Kirigiri could even invite her to sit down, she blurted out her news:

"Sir, it's the Reverse Course students. They're demonstrating against the main school!"


End file.
